“You would not consider what I simply noticed:” Ingenuity Helicopter efficiently flies on Mars
NASA sparked a Wright Brothers moment on Mars earlier this morning by successfully flying the tiny Ingenuity helicopter for about 40 seconds.
“We can now say that humans have flown a rotorcraft on another planet,” said MiMi Aung, chief engineer at Ingenuity, with her colleagues who had gathered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California to carry out the flight and monitor.
The solar-powered helicopter took advantage of the midday sun on Mars and flew back to Earth at 12:33 p.m. Local Mean Solar Time, 03:34 a.m. EDT (12:34 a.m. PDT). Altimeter data sent back to Earth via the Perseverance rover indicated that Ingenuity climbed to a maximum altitude of 10 meters (3 meters) and maintained a stable hover for 30 seconds. It then descended and landed back on the Martian surface after recording a total of 39.1 seconds of flight. This is the first powered, controlled flight on another world.
Persistence was able to capture pictures and videos of the flight, and NASA says additional details on the test and more pictures are expected in the upcoming downlinks.
Ingenuity’s downward facing navigation camera captured the main image and showed the helicopter’s shadow on the surface of Mars.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, which can be seen here about 3.9 meters from the rover. This image was captured by the WASTON camera on the rover’s robotic arm on April 6, 2021, the 46th Mars day or sol of the mission. Credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.
The flight was delayed one week after tests indicated a problem with the flight computer when transitioning from pre-flight mode to flight mode. New software was uploaded to the helicopter and tested over the weekend.
Today’s flight demonstration was autonomous – controlled by on-board guidance, navigation and control systems running algorithms developed by the JPL team. NASA stated that Ingenuity cannot be flown with a joystick like drones on Earth because Mars is so far away that there is about a 12 minute delay when data sent from Earth is received on Mars, and another 12 minutes to receive data back again.
Video from the JPL flight control room when engineers received data indicating that Ingenuity had flown successfully.
The ingenuity is about 48 cm and has counter-rotating carbon fiber blades with a wingspan of about 1.2 m. The blades rotated at more than 2,400 revolutions per minute to give the helicopter enough lift in the thin Martian atmosphere.
“Now, 117 years after the Wright brothers made the first flight on our planet, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has done this amazing feat on another world,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Science Administrator at NASA. “While these two iconic moments in aviation history may be separated by time and 173 million miles of space, they will now be forever connected.”
As a tribute to the two innovative bicycle manufacturers from Ohio, Zurbuchen said that this first “airfield” on another world will now be known as Wright Brothers Field.
Ingenuity came along with the Perseverance rover to Mars, which was located under the rover’s belly when it landed on Mars in February 2021.
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